Officer accused in post-Mardi Gras sexual battery

A San Diego police officer was arrested Friday on suspicion of assaulting a woman who was leaving the Gaslamp Quarter Tuesday night following a Mardi Gras celebration, Police Chief William Lansdowne said.

He was identified by police as Officer Anthony Arevalos, 40, an 18-year department veteran.

The news followed the resignation a week ago of San Diego police Officer Art Perea, who is under investigation for the rape of a college student in El Cajon.

“Police departments are staffed by people, and sometimes people make bad choices,” a somber Lansdowne said Friday night at San Diego Police Department headquarters.

Arevalos, a traffic officer, was to be booked into jail Friday night on suspicion of sexual battery, false imprisonment and assault under the color of authority, Lansdowne said.

Arevalos stopped the 32-year-old woman in her vehicle for suspicion of driving under the influence of alcohol, police said. She was not arrested. She contacted police the next day to report being assaulted.

Assistant Police Chief Cesar Solis, who flanked Lansdowne Friday night, called the victim “very courageous.” Lansdowne said that police had worked 72 hours nonstop on the investigation before presenting the results to the District Attorney’s Office.

Solis said that he could not discuss details of the incident. He said that Arevalos was in a marked patrol car and the woman was the only one in her vehicle.

Lansdowne said that the two officer investigations no doubt affect the community's “level of trust” in the department. But he emphasized that the Friday arrest shows that “no one is above the law.”

Police released a photograph of Arevalos because they said he may be linked to a similar incident about a year ago. Solis said he could not release details of the incident, but said it was “thoroughly investigated” at the time. No arrest was made. Anyone with information is asked to call the department’s sex-crimes unit at (619) 531-2210.

According to Union-Tribune files, Arevalos helped save the life of a 9-year-old boy who nearly drowned in a bathtub at an Otay Mesa home in 1999. In 1997, he was cleared by the District Attorney’s Office in the nonfatal shooting of Laura Pinon, 18, of San Ysidro.

Pinon pointed what appeared to be an Uzi assault weapon at passersby and officers on a San Ysidro street while high on methamphetamine. It was later determined that what looked like a weapon was a realistic-looking fake gun.